Watco Switching Services currently operates two locations in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. They’re made up of several mines, but since the team works for two companies, they’re consolidated under only two operations. Called the Black Thunder and Peabody locations, teams load unit trains for BNSF and Union Pacific (UP) near Gillette and Wright, Wyo.
At first, the process between receiving an empty inbound train and setting a loaded outbound train out for pickup may seem straightforward and simple. However, there is more to it than merely pulling the trains through the loaders. There are several steps our teams must complete before handing trains back off, and they get started as soon as the trains arrive.
On average, the empty coal trains arriving from BNSF and UP are 135 to 150 cars long. The first thing our team does when the cars arrive is give them all an inspection. They check the gates on the hopper cars to ensure they’re closed, the brakes to make sure they’re untied, the car numbers to make sure the consist is correct, the weights on the cars to make sure the mines get the correct billing, and also do a regular railroad inspection to ensure the cars are fit to be loaded and travel to their destination. The whole inspection takes place in about 15 minutes. If a car is bad ordered and needs to be set out, our team does that as well.
“Normally, we call the Class I to come out and take a look at it. If it’s something they can’t cycle or fix on the fly, we’ll set it out or move it in the train so they can set it out further down the main line,” said Zach Leingang, assistant general manager. “It’s pretty straightforward from there. Sometimes during the winter, the mine will spray deicer before loading. Most of the time, we try to keep it moving because if the silos fill up, the haul trucks stop. We don’t want to be the weak link in the chain.”
Once they know everything checks out, our team crews the trains, operating the Class I’s locomotives through the loading area. The train passes over a weigh scale as it approaches the loading chute, where each car is loaded in under a minute. It takes only about an hour and a half to load each train.
The crews pull the trains through the silos for the mines to load. As they’re pulling forward, the coal cars pass under a spray station before heading to the outbound track. There, another contractor sprays the top of the coal. The product sprayed on is a substance similar to Elmer’s glue. This prevents coal from blowing out while it’s being transported to its destination.
“A lot of the trains go through locations with environmental restrictions. We don’t want coal blowing off onto farmers’ crops and people’s homes,” said Zach. “That’s why they spray it with this chemical that makes it all stick together while it’s transported.”
Zach knows this part of the process just as well as the rest. He’s been in the basin for about five years now, and started out working for the contractor that sprays the trains. He did that for a while before becoming a switchman. He’s worked his way up from there and very recently became the assistant general manager for both operations.
As the trains move to the outbound track, the expediter begins working with the Class I’s to put the billing package together and have Class I crews deployed to pick up the outbound train.
“The expediter is kind of half mine personnel and half Watco team member. We contract them, but they do the billing packets for the utility customers, handle diversions, train traffic, moving trains around for us if we have to, to the other mines, and get trains for us. They help make us as efficient as possible,” said Zach.
Communication is key to keeping these operations moving, and our team is in frequent contact with our Customers and our Class I partners. Especially since our teams are working across the five mines and average about 21 trains per day. Each shift is 12 hours and they work in teams of eight, plus four support team members, including the expediter, making it 12 people working for our Customers around the clock, 24/7.
“We do my shift changes at 5:45 a.m. The first thing we do is check the lineups and swap out on trains. We talk to the loaders during the whole loading process. They’ll tell us to pull forward or bring it back,” said Zach. “I sit in their meetings in the morning to go over anything that we need to know.”